Reviews

The first thing I noticed about this CD was on the first track in the first ten seconds; drummer Ben Graham sounded like he was on the back of the beat for the entire first song. I kept thinking he was coming in a millisecond late on each beat compared to the rest of the band. The guitars seemed to be on the front of the beat and Graham was following in the back.

It wasn't until track four, Stop Now, that I felt like the band was functioning cohesively. I have to admit, listening to this release was a little boring; there isn't much dynamically that kept me interested. Each song has the same tempo and each delivery sounds the same. It could partially be because of the recording. The levels aren't all there, the vocals sit behind the band and the drum kit blares over everything else, and while I would normally enjoy that, it is very distracting here. Ian Graham, the lead vocalist, sings well but there isn't much variety in how he sings. It just comes across plain and tired.

I can't really recommend this release unless you are a fan of this genre of music, or rather the content; boy doesn't like his life and begins writing songs about it. I'm not saying people shouldn't write about how they feel but aren't there any other topics to write about? And more variety in the composition of the music would have helped a lot; each song sounds very similar and there isn't much to pull the listener past the first few tracks because telling them apart isn't that easy.

Given more time to mature and maybe find another time signature or tempo, Cheap Girls will be a very good, straight forward rock band. Maybe they have something more live that can't be heard through CD.